This is a letter that was sent to state legislators and is also being sent to the governor.
The organizations listed in this letter (full list here) have joined together to urge you not to cut Medicaid and want to stress the following important factors to consider in your deliberations.
First, there is no better investment New Mexico can make than to leverage federal Medicaid and CHIPRA funds at almost an 80 percent matching rate. There is no better return on our dollar available to us from any other source, and this is an effective way to stimulate our economy with funds from outside of New Mexico.
Beyond the 4:1 value in these federal matching funds, health care dollars turn over and multiply in our economy, creating good paying jobs and other revenues; economists estimate this impact at over threefold in economic activity. We think this is one of the best ways to help New Mexico’s economy and preserve and create jobs.
Secondly, cutting Medicaid health care services hurts people and our health care system more than other cuts because of the federal matching funds. A cut of $1 in Medicaid results in $5 in cuts to services. With many New Mexicans struggling in this economy, we do not believe our most vulnerable citizens should suffer more with drastic cuts in health care.
In addition, our health care system is already inadequate, and massive Medicaid cuts would severely impact health care services to everyone, since such a large proportion of the coverage in our state is through Medicaid funding. Impacts in rural areas would be particularly severe at a time when many of our rural hospitals and providers are already barely surviving.
Thirdly, in a time of uncertainty with national health care reform, and with New Mexico having the highest uninsured rate of any state except Texas, we must continue to work on creative solutions for coverage for New Mexicans. We must figure out financing solutions not only to preserve coverage in existing programs, but also to utilize the major new CHIPRA federal funds available to us for covering people in our state.
If we don’t do this, we will once again be in the very bad predicament of sending massive amounts of federal funds back to Washington to be used in other states. That is unacceptable.
Senator Bingaman and our delegation worked hard to ensure special provisions for New Mexico to get these major new federal funds for coverage of more New Mexicans, and we do not want to send these dollars back to Washington after this leadership by our delegation to help us. We want to work in partnership with you to develop revenue and financing solutions to prevent such a tragedy. We also want to continue to partner with you in promoting transparency in our health care programs.
We look forward to working with you to immediately take steps to develop solutions for our health care investment in New Mexico.
Webber is the executive director of Health Action New Mexico.